Remains of a Heart
by Ulquii
Summary: "His gray eyes seemed to sparkle lively even without the light of the lantern, and his expression was all serious, with an almost invisible curve in the corner of his lips." (The Ghost AU nobody needed but me) [Currently on hiatus]
1. Chapter 1: The Painting

Hi, there!

This is my very first english fanfic and my very first voltron fanfic!

I'm really excited about it, and I hope I update it every week. I hope you like it and be free to comment whatever you think about it!

(If this fanfic goes well I'll probably translate every other fanfiction I have written in spanish :3)

* * *

It happened too fast.

"Keith!"

So fast that he doubted what he'd seen.

"Keith, what's wrong?"

So fast that he couldn't process what he believed he saw.

"You're pale, what's happening to you?"

"Okay, guys, give him some space", he heard vaguely and all the hands over his shoulders and back draw away, "He clearly is in shock."

"Keith?"

He mouthed a little, keeping his eyes glued to the painting before him. A painting visibly old and from the last century, illuminated only by one of the lanterns his friends have because the one he had had fell down and rolled away in the darkness.

"What's wrong, Keith?" one of them asked, a trembling big hand shaking his shoulder, "Don't tell me you saw something".

"Like a ghost?!"

"Pidge!"

"It's the only thing that could put him like this" she commented with obviousness in the tone.

"It's merely a soldier painting" he heard back him, recognizing the annoyed voice, "It isn't even a scary one".

"I think we should go", said the only voice of reason in the group, "It's getting late and…"

"Oh, are you scared, Allura?"

They started to argue behind him, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the portrait, trailing carefully the lines where a color collides with another. It was a soldier, yes, you could tell by judging the green uniform and the numerous medals in his chest, too many to be for someone that young, surely in between his 20s and 30s. His black hair was buzzed in the sides and nape, with a fringe longer in the top of his head.

His gray eyes seemed to sparkle lively even without the light of the lantern, and his expression was all serious, with an almost invisible curve in the corner of his lips.

He was sure he saw the man in the painting follow him down the corridor, moving his chin to continue watching him when he passed the portrait, startling him to the point of screaming and falling to the floor, losing his lamp and alerting his friends already climbing the stairs.

And now the image was frozen as it had to be, in the serious expression and almost smile.

"I'm not scared!"

"Aw, don't worry, Allura, I'll protect you."

"Lance, get over it, the only one scared here is Hunk and he's freaking out because of Keith. I don't think he would like your protection."

"Keith, you're scaring the hell out of me."

"I…" started without thinking, more like a sign of life. His friends made silence, waiting for him to continue talking.

"Are you possessed?" the littlest one said, crouching beside him, "Who are you? When did you die? How did you die?"

"PIDGE!"

"What? I want to know our new friend."

"I want my old friend back!"

"I'm fine" he tried forcing himself to stop staring at the grey eyes in acrylic, pasting his eyes to the wall instead, "Sorry for scaring you, I thought…"

"Did you see a ghost, Keith?"

"Did the painting move?"

"Tell me the painting didn't move."

"It's obvious it moved!"

He frowned, looking up again to the portrait.

"Why else would Keith scream for?!"

"Tell me it didn't move, Keith!"

The hand in his shoulder now was squeezing him painfully and had to take away the attention to the painting to palm the fingers.

"It didn't move, Hunk, relax" he lied with a nervous smirk, gaining a relived sigh from his friend.

"Oh, thank god!"

"Let me help you" Allura said giving him a hand, and stood up with the little help, "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay" he assured smiling briefly.

"What scared you so much, Keith?" Lance asked putting himself between both, making him stumble backwards at the sudden push.

"I…" doubted, giving Hunk a glance and seeing him trembling and shrugged on shoulders, Pidge watching him with an eyebrow up, "I thought I saw something. That's all."

"A ghost?" Pidge insisted, Hunk clearly shivering at that.

"It wasn't a ghost!" he cried hugging himself, "Right, Keith?!"

He opened his mouth, really doubting to answer because he wasn't really good lying a second time in a row, and heard Pidge murmur a 'Told ya'.

"I don't know what it was, okay?" he answered starting to feel annoyed, "Maybe it was the lightning or something else."

"Then, it wasn't the painting?" Lance questioned squinting at him with suspect, an irritating smile dancing in his mouth, "Are you scared of soldiers, Keith? How is that possible? They protect our country!"

He rolled his eyes, listening Allura breathe out in annoyance similar as his.

"Enough", she started, "We have to go before it's hard to find the entrance."

"It's just an old, dirty house" Lance protested, "Everybody knows that the entrance is over there."

"Actually, it's this way", said Pidge methodically, pointing to the other side of the hallway, "We were walking to the stairs when Keith screamed."

"Whatever", he waved his hand, "how difficult it is to get out of a house?"

"But this is a haunted house, Lance", Allura stated dead serious, "You told us."

"But…"

"And even if you know which way is the right way," continued Hunk shooting glances all over the place, with no necessity to act scared, "you're going to get lost because it's haunted!"

"Hunk…"

"Oh, you know what that means?" Pidge jumped, startling everyone, "Lance would be the first one to die or disappear."

"What? Why?"

"Because you took the wrong way to the outside" Allura whispered putting a hand in her mouth, faking surprise, "Oh, Lance, I'm so sorry."

"I'm not dead!"

"Would" Pidge emphasized with a finger up, "be dead. Oh, poor and defenseless Lance."

"We should take care of him in the way out" the other girl said, putting her hand in Pidge's shoulder, both nodding with determination.

"Oh, come on" Lance complained throwing his hands up with a groan, "It's Hunk who is scared to death!"

"I don't know, man" Hunk shrugging with a little smile, "Knowing it's you who would die first relaxes me a bit."

"Hunk!"

"Let's go, let's go."

The four came back down the hall, teasing and mocking Lance, but Keith couldn't laugh at any of the jokes neither piss him off with one of his. He stared at the painting once again, the corridor darkening because of the lanterns walking away and the sun hiding, and took a deep breath, biting his lips nervously. The eerie sensation was back in his nape, making shiver at the strangely familiar perception.

He downed his eyes and shook his head, convincing himself of the words he told his friends and trying to forget the experience.

He took half a step to follow them, but stopped in the middle at the feeling of a stare in his person, burning his back persistence, a gentle persistence, not like the creepy action the painting by his left did before. He swallowed the knot in his throat and turned without having even gathered the courage to do so, finding the hallway empty and the noise of a breeze hitting the window.

Keith exhaled; shocked he was containing a breath, and blinked to the empty space, a weird magnetism inviting him to go deeper into the house, to the doors in the back.

"Keith!"

He startled, retracting his steps quickly and trying with all his will to not look back, this time sure there was something floating in the middle of the hallway, watching him closely.


	2. Chapter 2: The Storm

I TOTALLY forgot to update this, I'm so sorry ;-;

* * *

He was used to the goosebumps going through his back and the anxiety of feeling that someone was watching him. But that…

That was something slightly different.

He tried to swallow, not achieving anything because of the dryness of his mouth, and glanced through the window in front of his desk, too conscious of the abandoned house a couple of blocks away. He couldn't see well due to the scarce public light that fell in the sidewalk, and the moon, even though in that night was full and shining, was covered in thick layers of gray clouds, lighting up every now and then by the storm's lightning.

He shook his head, getting back the attention to the homework he didn't do thanks to Lance's stupidity of dragging all of them to the house at the end of the street.

It had been fun at first, laughing and joking with all the knowledge Pidge shared about ghosts and haunted places; seeing Hunk get scared with every sound in the space, even the ones he made and freak out each time Pidge finished a spooky an unnecessarily bloody fact about poltergeist; grinning at the poor Lance trying to pull off something with Allura and failing spectacularly.

It had been fun until that moment in the hallway. The memory of that horrible sensation, coming back to life solely because he was in a haunted house. The feeling, so familiar but distant, that he really didn't want to recognize.

And he preferred to ignore it instead of thinking more about it.

But then he walked pass the painting, seeing the movement clearly from the corner of the eye and following it until looking at the portrait head-on, yelping and staggering backwards when the expression of the man in the painting was completely different to the serious face that was showing at first, coming back to this one in a blink.

Yes, it hadn't been his imagination. Neither a change of light; the painting had moved, and it had smiled at him sickly, his eyes flashing in a sharp yellow and his face corrupted in anger and hate, crowned by a white bang and crossed by a scar in the nose.

The stranger thing was he didn't remember any of this after screaming and falling. He remembered when he got out of the house and said goodbye to his friends, staying in the sidewalk and looking at the pavement, the images fresh and clear appearing so fast in the back of his eyes that caused him dizziness.

It was like his memory had been erased for an instant.

The sudden roar of a thunder startled him, making him draw a stiff and careless line in the edge of his notebook until breaking the tip in the desk.

"Shit."

He rubbed the little hole in the wood, detailing the damage made, and reached to get his sharpener, still staring at the graphite embedded into the strands of the wood. Another loud thunder sounded in the distance, the rain hitting perseveringly in the window's glass and in the roof. The brief light left him frozen, feeling an urgent necessity to look at the house at the other end of the street, gasping at the certainty that something had moved in the empty shadows of the old rooms.

Swallowing again, he clenched his fist around the sharpener and hurried to make his pencil be useful again, answering with desperation the questions in the paper. He allowed himself to breath for a second, recovering from the fear scratching inside his skin, and almost a minute after he could stop trembling, the sweat cooling down from his forehead and his lungs no longer demanding oxygen like mad.

And then he glanced through the window, through the water falling in the crystal, another lightning flashed fleetingly the neighborhood and the figure in the window of that room in the haunted house, that room that was attracting him that afternoon.

Paralyzed, he stared at the last word he had written in the notebook, not knowing how to even read it in the fright of the image.

He swallowed and this time he steeled himself before glancing at the house, proclaimed haunted by his stupid friend, waiting to see something in the midst of the water drops, in the midst of the darkness.

Other thunder fell, this time worryingly near, and he jumped back at the gray eyes in the other end of the street, the noisy rumble deafening the sound of his chair clattering to the floor. He didn't bother to lift it, less give it attention, his eyes stuck in the figure of a man in the abandoned house, staring back at him with a expression he could say stoic despite the distance.

The sky darkened, the shadow still present in the window, and he couldn't gain the strength to blink, opening the mouth in a silent gasp. There was another lightning, the white hair in the being gleaming beautifully, and suddenly disappearing with the last light of the storm.

He felt deaf, the sound of the rain to far away to make him come back to earth. He kept staring the house, waiting for more, processing the image.

It was the same man in the painting, but the black hair, that in the scare in the hallway had only a white bang, was completely whitish. His gray eyes seemed bright and lively, lost in the distance of the street to make contact with his, and he could even see the kindness in them. And the scar, cutting his nose from cheek to cheek, was there.

"Keith!"

He jumped, looking to the door at the startled voice of his mother.

"Are you okay? What was that noise?!" he heard her yell, the steps rushing up to his room.

He saw the chair, but instead of lifting it he hurried to pull the curtains in the window, looking briefly to the house that definitely was haunted.

Stupid Lance.

"Keith?"

The door opened shyly, the eyes of his mother searching him in the bedroom till finding him standing awkwardly in front of the desk, with his hands hidden behind and the chair thrown in the floor. He smiled nervously, seeing her raise an eyebrow at the neglected chair and question him with the gesture.

"I… uh…" he started poorly, searching a coherent explanation, hearing a lightning far in the city, "The storm. A thunder startled me."

For a moment he thought she wasn't convinced, detailing how she squinted at him but he relaxed at the sigh, the door opening totally and she leaning in the doorway.

"It was a loud one, huh?" she said crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, "I remember your father was frightened by them."

He scoffed, trying to smile shallowly at the mention. She saw it.

"Keith, if you want to talk…"

"I have to finish my homework" he interrupted, lowering his gaze.

"I understand…" his mother murmured, biting her lip in an uncomfortable gesture. Ah, that was something from her.

"Don't…" started gazing her, blinking a few times before continuing, "Don't take it wrong… I… maybe in some other time…"

He saw a smile in her mouth, avoiding eye contact but relieved that it actually worked.

"Whenever you're ready" she said with a tone smooth and welcoming, "I'll wait."

He nodded shortly, catching her looking over his shoulder to the covered window.

"Don't stay up to late."

"Yeah…"

The door closed and his shoulders dropped, hearing her steps to the other room and a door closing behind her.

He turned to the window, reaching the curtain and moving it a little to see.

The rain was more serene now, barely tapping the glass, and the eerie aura that made him see to the house was gone. He frowned when he noticed that the thunders had stopped, keeping the street in the dark with the miserable public light, and he sighed, letting the curtain fall back its place and crouching to lift the damned chair.

Then, gathering the image of the figure in the window, he noticed something he hadn't in the heat of the moment; the man with white hair and gentle eyes didn't have his right arm.


	3. Chapter 3: The Ghost

It had been a horrible night. To fall asleep in the darkness of his bedroom had been difficult, and the few times he was able to, he was woken up in cold sweat, the sudden memories of the man at the window, of the thunderstorm roaring for attention, of the gray eyes that stared at him so gently appeared behind his eyes.

"Keith Kogane!"

He startled, frightened, opening the eyes to find his teacher beside his desk, glaring at him with impatience.

"I'm sorry; did I wake you up from your nap?"

The laughter of all his classmates made him wince; shrugging between his shoulders at the big, mocking smile Pidge was in her face.

The bell rang, everybody getting up from their seats while the teacher keep yelling the instructions for the homework. Keith picked up his stuff slowly, growling at the weariness that heaved his eyelids down, and received a punch in the shoulder that, judging from the mad precision that made him suffer a severe pain, was from the little one.

"What's wrong, Red?" She asked seating in his table with easiness whilst he finished putting his notebooks in the backpack, "You look gross."

"Thank you, Pidge" he answered with a sigh, "I couldn't sleep last night."

Pidge analyzed him close his backpack and hang it in his shoulder, her glasses slipping to the tip of her nose.

"Is it because of the 39th house?" she asked, too much seriousness shadowing her voice.

"Uh…" He doubted, shaking his head, "No, that isn't…"

"Because" Pidge interrupted coming back to her feet, looking at some point in the sky with some thoughtful air, "certainly, that painting was spine-chilling, wasn't it? I know there was something weird with it.

Keith looked at her, unbelieving, and shook his head again thinking he imagined that.

"Really?" he asked in a little voice, gaining an exaggerated nod.

"I mean" Pidge continued, rubbing her chin, "I didn't tell anyone… but I actually saw something in the hallway."

Keith blinked, feeling scared for a second before feeling relief; he wasn't the only one who noticed.

Then all that happened wasn't his imagination.

"W-what?" he stuttered, having to cough to clear his throat, "What did you see, Pidge?"

She hummed, glancing at him as if she was wondering if she could trust him.

"Well, I saw…" started with caution, Keith getting close at the low volume of her voice, "the painting…"

Move? Smile? Transforming into a dreadful version of itself?

Keith had to contain the craving to ask, the anxiety rotting his senses more at each second passing. And felt time itself stopping when she opened her mouth to finish.

"Jump"

A shout in is ear made him jump away, tripping with his table and losing his backpack to the ground in a thud. The laugh of Pigde deafened him for a second, being slow to recognize the other laughter and the yell that frighten him.

"You would've seen your face!" Lance exclaimed between laughs, holding his head with a hand.

"You are so mature" he spitted with sarcasm, giving Pidge a derogative look while she laughed holding her stomach.

"It was so awesome" the little giggled, taking of her glasses to wipe her eyes, "You really got scared, didn't ya?"

"It looks like Kogane is scared of soldiers" Lance teased recovering his breath, "I wonder how the hell you are going to join the army."

"I wonder if he will be afraid of my brother when he returns" Pidge mocked him putting her glasses on, "But don't worry; you have some months to overcome your fear."

Keith glared them, wrinkling his nose in disgust and crossing his arms.

"Or maybe Matt won't be a soldier per se" Lance pointed out, "Maybe he'll scare Keith just a little."

"I'm not afraid of soldiers" he grumbled, getting more annoyed as that sounded ridiculous at his attempt to clarify it seriously.

"Yeah, sure"

"I bet he'll panic in the army with soldiers everywhere", Lance continued after the sarcastic response.

"I bet he'll freak out every time he sees himself in the mirror", Pidge formulated smartly with a mocking smile, Lance laughing out loud one more time.

"Forget it", Keith mumbled, pulling his backpack over his shoulder and hitting Lance with it as he walked out the classroom.

"I bet he'll scream every time he sees his own picture."

"Oh, poor Keith, he's scared of himself."

He walked away in the hallway, being chased by the laughs of his friends, and he was reached by Lance really fast, putting himself in front of Keith to stop him.

"Hey, calm down, dude", he said grabbing his shoulder, still laughing through breaths, "We're just kidding".

"Yes, don't be so strict", Pidge commented making Lance snort.

"Whatever", he huffed, pushing away his arm to continue walking. He hoped Hunk and Allura were in the front of the school already, at least they weren't such idiots.

"Okay, wait", Lance stopped him one more time, the touch in his shoulder being a really big nuisance, "You can go, but give me my lantern back."

Keith froze before he could push him, frowning deeply.

"What?"

Lance pursued his lips, one of his eyebrows going up.

"My lantern", he repeated, Keith looking his hand opened to him, "I borrow it to you before we got into the haunted house, Keith. My lantern."

Keith blinked, dumbfounded, and opened his mouth a little, doubting what to say.

"Lance, uh…"

He felt his eye tick, Pidge's eyes going from one to another with interest.

"I… think I lost your lantern", he confessed.

Lance huffed, making him look at him and disconcert at his forced smile.

"You lost it?" he asked incredulous, shaking his head a little, "How did you…?"

Lance quieted, the words getting lost in the air at the same time his face got serious, and Keith tensed at a snort, glancing Pidge rapidly and finding her as confused as he was.

"You lost it in the house, didn't you?" Lance said putting his hands in his pockets, a playful smile in his mouth.

Keith nodded slowly, thinking it was better not to speak.

"Good."

His eyebrows joined in consternation at the naughty light in Lance's eyes, and he heard Pidge snort.

"Oh, no" he gasped shaking his head, aware of the air both had between them and knowing what they were thinking, "No, no, no, no, no, no."

"What?" Lance asked with innocent tone.

"We haven't said anything" Pidge said with the same voice, exchanging conspiratorially looks with the taller one.

"I'll not go back in there" he murmured feeling his throat dry, a shiver making him tremble because of the memory of the previous day and the horrible scare he suffered the night before, so he repeated louder, "I'll not go back in there."

"But, Keith" Lance started with a friendly semblance, his arm hugging his shoulders and smiling at him, "You left my lantern."

"You have another three!"

"They came together as a package!"

He groaned, lifting his arms in frustration.

"Lance, please" he pleaded, letting go from his passive-aggressive hug, "Yesterday… that…"

"Are you scared, Red?"

He glared at Pidge and her unwavering malicious smile.

"I'm not…" he wanted to argument.

But it wasn't true.

He was scared.

"Are you scared of the little soldier, Kogane?"

Opening his mouth and closing it again, he squeezed his fists and bit his tongue.

"You are such…"

"Finish the sentence, Red" Pidge threatened, the creepiest smile in the whole fucking world pulling the corner of her lips.

And yes, creepier than stupid ghosts.

"I'll go for your stupid lantern" he spitted, pushing him to pass, hearing him laugh and follow.

"Don't worry, Keith" Lance said as he joined his trot, with Pidge hardly following their pace, "I'm sure sir soldier will return it to you kindly."

He felt his nose wrinkle at their too loud laughs, and he prayed all that things he saw and felt the day before were just his imagination.

Oh, how wrong he was.

"Come on, Red! You can do it!" the dwarf shouted from the above the old wood fence, Lance laughing out loud.

"Guys, I don't think this is a good idea…" he heard Hunk behind him in the safety of the sidewalk.

"At least someone should accompany him" Allura said, clearly anguished.

And, as the girl expected, as well as everybody actually, Lance crossed the forgotten garden, giving Keith a too hard slap in the back, the boy still motionless in the front of the house.

"Come on, bro."

Keith didn't answer."

"I said: COME ON!"

He got a push, stumbling ungraciously into the door opening without resistance, and falling in the floor inside the house.

"Oh, I'm sorry, too harsh?" Lance bugged him from behind, hearing Pidge laugh and Hunk and Allura scold him loudly.

He rolled his eyes, huffing and lifting dust from the floor in front of his face, the smell of it a little too old for his nose.

"You're insufferable" he complained getting up and shaking off the dust on his clothes, ignoring the stupid answer from Lance to look around.

It didn't seem like the same house they explored the evening before, an emptier aura more than a scarier one, being decorated by dust specks and the light getting in from the windows and the holes in the walls.

He swallowed with difficulty, this time around a knot, and nibbled his lower lip as he encouraged himself to take a step inside. The wood underneath his weight crunched painfully whilst he entered the hall, looking briefly to the room on his right; a small living room with a broken-down armchair, in the back it seemed to be an incomplete bar, with empty glasses and bottles abandoned in the shelf.

He turned his head to the left with caution, catching a glance of what looked like the dining room and kitchen, both empty and with a rug covered with dirty fluff. He got his eyes to the front, to the hallway, and recognized the frame of the painting in the wall, aligned with some other framed pictures, old and forgotten where the faces couldn't been seen. He shot glances around and keep moving forward, Lance still going on about complains to his person.

"And now it turns out that although I do the duty of accompanying you here, you nag about my help."

"You only do it for Allura" he commented with no heat behind, to immerse in walking slowly in the hallway.

"Excuse me?" he let out, not moving from the principal entrance and gesturing with his hands exaggeratedly, "Do you actually see me as a profit-seeker? You have absolutely no sensibility at the feelings of someone, do you?"

He rolled his eyes.

"I've been trying to have at least one date since so long, and it's not only because of her beauty or popularity. No. She's just so gorgeous and strong and intelligent. It's not merely interest, Keith. But how could a virgin like you understand it? You've never had a girlfriend! Or boyfriend. Whatever. You'll never have one, surely, with that damned attitude of yours…"

He preferred to ignore him, this time speeding up his steps even if his courage wasn't ready, and the annoying noise from the entrance stopped reaching his ears just as he entered the point of view of the painting. Keith stopped against his will in front of it, the blood going cold all of the sudden and the color of his face running away instantly. He felt cold and the urge to see the portrait to check the face was more than his own bravery.

He glanced, not catching anything unusual, and turned his head more to see it entirely, feeling his mouth dry up at the almost smile and the proud light in the eyes.

He hadn't noticed last evening among shadows, but the man painted in acrylic looked like someone incredible, with the numerous medals hanging in his chest and the military uniform tailored. With the fine and strong jawline and the straight, firm shoulders. With the lips slightly curved in serenity and the black bang falling and raising funnily from his forehead. With those gray irises, clear and soft, and the golden stripes of light that shined on the portrait because of the sunlight entering through the window.

He had to swallow, looking away to be able to breathe, his own heartbeat hitting his eardrums taking him away from the reality.

"Keith!"

He tensed, turning to face Lance's annoying voice.

"What are you doing?! Are you at least listening to me?!"

He rolled his eyes, again, and preferred to ignore it, again. And Keith continued walking, trying to get that feeling away from him and finding the little lantern thrown in front of one of the doors by the end of the hallway, still on and pointing to the wall.

"I found it" he told Lance, grateful to interrupt his complains.

"Finally!" he heard him wail from the entrance, "I'm starving here, you know!"

Keith huffed as a wave of complains filled the hallway filled one more time, and the leaned to take the lantern turning it off.

Without the little extra light, he noticed a stripe of light coming out from the room, gasping when he recognized it was the same room that had a perfect view from his own bedroom window.

He raised his eyes through the light, his gaze adjusting to the abrupt change of light from a poorly illuminated hallway to a full of orange sunlight entering from the windows room. He immediately lost his breath.

In the midst of shines of dust, a translucent figure stood by the window, being pierced by the orange light coloring the lifeless wood of the floor. It floated up and down in a slight and slow motion, almost peaceful, and the gray eyes, as clear and bright as in the portrait but incredible gentle and melancholic, were lost in the distance through the glass.

Its reflection couldn't be seen in the window even though his clothes were all black and close-fitting to his body, his white hair sparkling orange and raising gracefully in every barely there move.

And this time Keith could see clearly the lack of his right arm, it's short sleeve hanging motionless from his shoulder.

The lantern hit the floor, and the transparent eyes stilled on him, and Keith gasped from seeing his face entirely, being crossed by the scar over his nose and cheeks. And at the sight of his irises being rounded in astonishment, his jaw dropped with wonder, unable to even think to break the connection their gazes made.

"Keith!"

Startled, he dropped his eyes slightly to glare at Lance, but that half second where he regretted to turn away from the inside of that room and tried to find again those gray eyes was the worst mistake he could make.

He hurried to push the door with his weight, peeking desperately inside the abandoned and enlightened room and the specks of dust stirring with the movement of the air, the smell of old and unused being now too strong. He blinked a few times before falling to his heels, defeated, looking intently into the empty room, with only a pair of old nightstands and torn-apart curtains.

He looked at it, feeling lost, incredulous, and unable to comprehend what just happened before his eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing, Kogane?!"

He clenched his fists, resisting the impulse of throwing him the little lantern straight to his face only to make him shut up. But, even when the distance wasn't the problem to give him an accurate hit to Lance's nose, he couldn't allow himself to get into trouble, again.

"Shut up", he jabbered getting to his feet, not even saying it to loud for Lance to hear him from the entrance.

"What?! Speak up, Little Red Riding Hood!"

And, while his stupid friend keep yelling at him, going on and on about who knows what kind of things about his shitty attitude, Keith couldn't keep his gaze away the empty room before him, lost in a gray so beautiful it did not require any color to leave him restless.


	4. Chapter 4: The Vision

He had never been the type of person that dreams every night, always with a hazy or any remembrance of what his mind made up to entertain him whilst sleep.

And even when there was a time he was used to take someone else's skin to revive memories, that…

That was too real.

The alarms punching in his ear at the same rhythm the red light bathed him over and over, leaving him dazed, the sound of the rain and lightning present but distant in the glass in front of him, the control in his hands trembling violently and escaping his grip, scaring him with a free fall that overturned his stomach.

He sweated cold between fear and despair, a mop of damp hair stuck to his forehead and a set of clothes that fit on his torso preventing him from breathing properly.

He was in free fall, or that's what he thought, the feeling of vertigo causing him nausea, and he had to close his eyes, a vague and fast image appearing in his mind.

"You can do it, Shiro" he heard himself say in a voice he didn't know, the terror bristling his skin going down a little, "You have to calm down. Remember you have to go back to him."

The control in his hands stopped moving aggressively and a slow pull to it made him regain the balance of his stomach, clenching his teeth at the metal rattle and the ceaseless alarm buzzing in his ears.

"Remember what you promised."

He breathed deeply a few times, finally identifying the gray sky with thick clouds and the floor under him in different colors dressing the earth. Sighing, he looked at his hands covered in gloves he'd never saw in his life pressing a couple of buttons in the console and the alarm stopping, giving his ears and eyes some rest.

He felt himself smile easily at the sight of some aligned lights in the distance, one of his hands combing through his hair to pull it away of his face.

"Come back to him, Shiro" he heard himself murmur, his eyes darting briefly to the building next to the landing track, following a figure covered with a green raincoat running through the storm to the place he was going to land on, "Come back to him."

He woke up with the hit of the wheel against the pavement, the ceiling of his room being abruptly boring in contrast with the adrenaline he was still feeling in his veins. It was the third time he dreamed about piloting a plane, the first two times being easy, smooth flights, very different to the desperation that filled him going through that storm.

And that voice that came from him but didn't recognize had him charmed, with the low and rough pitch that tickled his ears. He heard it before in the other dreams, coming out from his mouth with an unknown easiness he didn't have to voice his own thoughts, remembering it with so much detail, even when he just heard it a number of times he could count with the fingers of one hand. And with certain affection, he had to admit, because that deep tone made him smile without fail, the warmth filling the insides of his heart and grounding him at the same time it could make him float.

And everything will be the same as the last mornings, with Keith having to conform to the scarce information he had from that person owner of the voice, only if he hadn't heard those clues, the word dancing in his tongue with yearning.

"Shiro" he murmured, a smile escaping from his lips, "Shiro…"

He hurried to get up from his bed, sitting in front of his computer and writing the word in the search, ignoring the list of words he already tried before, such as "pilot" and "combat aircraft". He frowned at the results and clicked a random one, crunching his eyebrows more.

Shiro is a homogeneous stew whose primary ingredient is powdered chickpeas or...

Rolling his eyes, he got back to the list of results and clicked the previous one.

Shirō: Rōmaji transcription of しろう.

He squinted his eyes at the symbols, with no idea what that meant, and shook his head while going back again and clicking another link.

The Japanese word for white (白), castle (城), and substitute (代).

Keith pursued his lips, looking up at the house in the other end of the street.

"White…"

Like his hair.

"Keith! You're going to be late!"

He jumped off the chair, almost tripping with it, closed the laptop and ran to his closet.

A few minutes later he went downstairs, just saying goodbye under his breath before leaving the house and barely listening to his mother's scolding from the kitchen.

"So" Hunk started before biting his hamburger and kept talking with full mouth, "I told him that it had to be the initial programming, but Iverson didn't believe me at all. And Pidge had to intervene so that Lance and I didn't fail the exam."

"Always having to save your butts" she said apathetic, writing in frantic speed on her computer, her food forgotten and getting cold on the side.

"But Iverson had always had something against us" Lance complained moving his hands and launching sauce from his fork to who knows where, "Last time he incriminated me for being copying in the test!"

"Lance" Allura said glaring from the other side of the table, "you actually were copying in that test."

"Not true!"

"True" Pidge argue with no heat behind, still staring at whatever code she was plotting and writing nonstop "You were copying Keith's."

"Iverson made it look like it was some kind of plan!" he exclaimed outraged, pointing Keith with both hands, "As if I could work with this idiot!"

"You were copying his test, Blue" Pidge spitted exasperated, finally stopping her typing and rolling her eyes to glare him "Who is the idiot here?"

"Does that matter?!"

"It does, actually" Hunk commented with a little smile.

"It doesn't!"

"Keith?"

Everyone looked at Allura, who was staring beside her at Keith chopping his fries with a fork even when he never used one to eat them. He didn't hear her, apparently, and he only regarded his friends when Allura shoved him lightly.

"What?"

"You've been to quiet" Hunk pointed shrugging his shoulders, and before Keith could argument, he continued, "Much more than normal."

"I didn't have anything to say" he tried looking back to his lunch.

"You had so much to say" Pidge said with her attention back in her laptop, "You could, I dunno, like, defend yourself from Lance's stupid comments."

"They're not stupid, they're completely logical" Lance groaned even when Pidge ignored him.

"Are you alright, Keith?" Allura asked while patting his shoulder, "You were distracted in Literature, too."

He grimaced, poking the fries again with his fork and sighing.

"I don't know" he answered biting his lower lip, and glancing at Lance because of his surviving instincts, rolling his eyes at the glare he was receiving.

"Have you been sleeping, at least?" she asked, visibly concerned, "The other day you said you didn't had any rest during the night."

"I'm well-rested, Allura" he answered, and it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't normal to be well-rested because of certain dreams of a certain stranger with a certain reassuring voice.

She scoffed, crossing her arms.

"Well, your tone really doesn't say it" she bugged him with another shove, making him laugh.

"Sorry" Keith tried with a better sound of his voice and received another push.

"You can take a nap if you want" she said scooting closer in the bench "There's still some time before break ends."

"I'm…" he started but stopped, catching the death glare lance was giving him from the other side of the table. He tried not to smirk, "Well, I think a nap will help."

"Of course!" Allura confirmed joining her hands in a light clap, "Here, you can use my shoulder."

He pursued his mouth small, looking directly at Lance, and the crinkled nose of his annoying friend almost made him laugh.

"Thanks, Allura" he appreciated but smiled openly at Lance while she approached a little bit more for him to lean on her shoulder.

"DON'T BELIEVE HIM, ALLURA! IT'S A TRAP!" Lance shouted out of the blue, jumping from the table and tipping his beverage on Pidge's lap, who immediately lifted her laptop over her head.

"HOW CAN YOU BE THIS STUPID, MCCLAIN?!" she screamed whilst taking the half empty bottle and throwing it to Lance's face "Bring napkins now! You idiot!"

Reluctantly, and still shooting angry glares at Keith, he strode toward the bar, Keith rolling his eyes as he filled his fists with napkins.

"You should be the bigger man, Keith" Allura scolded him softly while Hunk tried to calm Pidge down.

"You get what you gain" he stated closing his eyes and cuddling in her side, sighing when he could get comfortable, "It's not my fault you keep rejecting him though you like him."

He gained a harsh hit in the back, almost crashing in the table. Fair enough.

"I can't accept him when the only thing he likes about me is my appearance."

Keith rolled his eyes even when having them closed, and scoffed.

Obviously Allura will think that, Lance only bugging him, Pidge and Hunk about the gorgeous and smart is the girl, repeating it so many times that he was able to recite all the cheesy things he said about her with easiness. He never said any of those things to her, though, being only the flirty annoying asshole he was with every girl he liked. And he abruptly wanted to interfere between them to make Allura aware of how terribly real were Lance's feelings and hit Lance so hard he regarded what an idiot he was being always around her.

But, just as he left himself drift off consciousness, he fell asleep and into a dream, opening the eyes to the sky above him and the ground below him through a curved window, the control in his hands calmer than the dream before and the vertigo sensation nowhere near his stomach but in the inside of his heart.

He heard himself laugh in that unknown, stirring voice, and heard something like radio interference in the hearing aid over his ears before an apparently timid cough making him smile fondly.

"Shiro?"

He giggled again in a voice that wasn't his, in a laugh that wasn't his. He'd never laughed so easily. One of his fingers pressed a button in the console, keeping it pressed while talking.

"Yes?"

"How long do you plan to be up there?" the voice in the communicator asked in an amused tone, the sole experience of hearing it in his head, so near to his ears, filling his senses and tickling his skin, making him close his eyes briefly, "General Iverson is looking for you."

He opened his eyelids and turned back the plane, visualizing the landing strip before answering.

"Don't tell me you got in trouble again."

"If I were in trouble, I wouldn't be able to call you, right?"

"I'm very aware of your impressive ability to communicate with me even when in trouble."

"I'm not in trouble, okay?"

The impatient pitch made him laugh one more time, feeling himself smile at the sight of a familiar figure standing at the side of the landing track. He bit his smile down, landing softly and turning off the motor after the plane stopped moving. The hatch opened with a blow of air hitting his face, and he took of the headphones to get off the plane, sighing with relief at the solid ground beneath his feet.

"Shiro!"

He jumped slightly, his heart drumming strangely against his ribcage, and he shook his head before glancing, giggling to himself when seeing him run from the edge of the pavement, his eyes not quite capable to see the face clearly in the distance. He brought his gloved hand to his nape, scratching in nervousness, too conscious of himself, a feeling he was really accustomed to have in his own body, and felt his face light up in hot red.

"Not the best time to lose your cool, Shiro" he heard himself say in that deep voice, lightly pitched up in coyness, his eyes darting to the small plane by his side and staying in the reflecting glass.

Gray eyes stared back at him, black hair above his head and a bashful smile in the lips he saw with detail a few times now in a painting, smiling proudly and almost invisible.

"Takashi."

He panted, the turn of his head so fast to his side he startled in his place, sitting upright suddenly with regained consciousness.

"Keith?"

He looked around disoriented, finding his group of friends staring at him in concerned expressions, and brought his hand to his forehead, the dream to clear in the back of his eyes.

"Keith? Are you alright?" Allura asked beside him, trying and failing to turn him to her by grabbing his arm.

He mouthed, prepared to lie, but he shot his sight to the side, shaking his head when he went over the dream against his will.

"Perhaps…"

He paralyzed, glancing her briefly and catching her expression of knowing, of understanding what just happened.

"It wasn't…" he tried, but quieted, his jaw clenched and his hands trembling in his tights.

"A dream" Allura said unbelieving, not even asking, "You had a dream."

"I…" he started, scoffing at his sudden incompetence to talk "I didn't. Allura, it wasn't…"

"Why are you trying to lie to me?"

He froze, only having the strength to stare at her blankly.

"What…?" he asked, frowning but trying to smile to calm her "I wasn't… I'm not…"

Allura stood up, making him jump.

"I thought you didn't dream unless…" she started, her face going to a pained expression before shaking her head and frowning, "What's happening, Keith?"

He mouthed, again, and laughed forcedly.

"Allura, I don't…"

"Explain yourself."

His smile faltered.

"Allura…"

"Explain it" she demanded taking a step and making him back off, "Now."

Keith glanced down, dizzy from so many thoughts going back and forth his mind, and felt the eyes from his other friends from the other side of the table, staring at them and too lost in the conversation to interfere.

"Keith!"

"Okay! I've had them!" he interrupted before she started scold him, looking at her eyes in a try to calm her down "The dreams. I've had them since, like, three days ago."

Allura stared at him, blank and lost, taking a seat slowly without blinking.

"What…?" she murmured incredulous, a pain in his chest making its way to his heart at that, "But you hadn't… since…"

He darted his eyes away, too pressured, and caught Lance, Hunk and Pidge looking fixedly at them

"I know" Keith said going back to Allura, mouthing and hitting himself internally when he couldn't find words again, "I know it was, like, two years ago, and…

"Is it because of the 39th house?"

He startled, hurting his shoulders at the sudden move.

"Allura…"

"Is it?"

He stayed silent, not knowing how to explain, not even able to think of how to lie about it. He couldn't lie. Not to Allura.

"Yes…" he nodded slowly, hearing her scoff and nervously tap her fingers in the table.

"Keith, why did you not tell me?" she questioned in a whisper, her hand trapping his and squeezing it in a reassuring way, "Why did you save it until now? Lance made you go in there again!"

"What's happening?"

Keith looked at Hunk, the three of them too confused and concerned, and he sighed, pinching his nose with his fingers in frustration.

"I've always been able to notice strange things", he explained briefly, Allura's fingers caressing the back of his hand, "things that normally nobody can see or hear".

He risked a glance to his friends, noting each one of them; Hunk more and more dismayed, Pidge weirdly interested, and Lance giving irritating looks to their intertwined hands. He felt his eyes rolling against his will.

"Ghosts?" Pidge doubted with too much excitement.

"Tell me they weren't ghosts, Keith" Hunk pleaded.

"Aren't you inventing all this to make yourself interesting?" Lance accused with his eyebrows crunched together, his blue eyes still in their hands.

"It was…" he said, doubtful, and made a vague move with his hands, Hunk staring at it like waiting a signal to start to freak out.

"Keith met my father" Allura murmured hiding herself between her shoulders, her eyes seeing their hands fondly.

And Keith nibbled his lip, lowering his gaze to the table and closing his eyelids at the memory.

"I thought…" Lance said with a careful and quiet voice, surprisingly leaving behind the hatred towards Keith, "your father died before you met us."

"Before you moved here, even" Pidge completed, squinting at Keith, "Wasn't that the reason why you moved here in the first place?"

"Yes, it was" Allura answered with easiness.

"Then, how…?"

He felt the eyes of everybody over him, very heavy in his head, and he tipped his head to the back, groaning just before hearing Pidge talk with a smile that sounded all through her voice.

"A ghost, huh?"

He glared at her, and tried not to pay attention to Hunk whimpering and cuddling himself in the bench.

"It wasn't, exactly" he clarified, passing a hand to his face to try and get some energy to explain, "At first it was only the sensation something was following Allura."

The girl shrugged with the smallest smile in her mouth.

"And it was really weird because there was never something there" he sighed exasperated, "It was until I had all those dreams that everything started to make sense, because I could see everything from another perspective, with a younger Allura calling me "Dad", or her uncle, Coran, calling me "Alfor" or "Brother". I always automatically responded to that, I didn't even act as myself…

"You… dreamed you were Allura's dad?" Lance asked, some teasing in the confused tone.

"They were his memories" Pidge interfered before Keith's eyes fall off of rolling his eyes too much, "Her father's memories, weren't they?"

Keith nodded, swallowing hard.

"And a moment ago…" Hunk murmured more frightened than surprised by the whole story.

"I had a dream of someone else's memories" he stated slowly, scoffing at how weird it was to say it out loud.

"Someone…" Allura repeated, her hand still relieving him, "The soldier of the painting?"

He bit his lip, thinking deeply; the gentle gray eyes in the translucent figure from that room tickling his senses, the affectionate, timid gray eyes staring back at him in the reflecting glass, the vivid gray eyes turning themselves briefly to the horrible yellow in the acrylic painting in the hallway of the 39th house.

"His name is Shiro" he whispered, Takashi, he thought, too conscious of the warm flooding his whole only at pronouncing it, only at thinking it "And I think he needs help."


	5. Chapter 5: The Medal

And there he was, _again_ , looking at the timeworn door and paralyzed in front of the old stairs in the entrance. He felt the urge of his body to tremble at the anticipation, the terror scratching the insides of his skin because of the memories of what he lived in that house more than of the eerie aura that enveloped every strand of wood.

"Are you going in or not?"

He breathed deeply and exhaled slowly, glaring over his shoulder with anger.

"What?" Lance answered with an impatient wave of his hand, "You've been standing there for like 10 minutes now."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes, and felt Pidge palm his back.

"Don't worry, Red" she tried to comfort him, the light in her brown eyes too excited and the red light in her camera blinking not helping, "This time it's me who is going in with you."

"That doesn't really help."

But he knew Pidge was the best option of all his friends. He didn't want to go in there again hearing all the protests and sarcastic comments that Lance had prepared for him. Nor the whines and cries that he was sure Hunk would make if he stand any closer to the house.

As for Allura…

He glanced to the girl at the other side of the fence, her arms crossed and her eyes fixed in the pavement. Ever since Pidge proposed, or ordered, that they'll go back to the house to explore, Allura jumped in disagreement, discussing with desperate fear that they shouldn't go again, arguing with too much excuses that Pidge started teasing her about hiding something.

But Keith knew why she didn't want him to go into the house.

"I don't think we should" he found himself saying just when Pidge went too far with annoying Allura, and the look on her faces were the exact opposite of the other's.

"But, Red" Pidge started crossing her arms and gazing at the ground, "you told us he needs help."

Keith opened his mouth to complain, but Pidge continued.

"And what if he is in great danger?" she argued taping her finger in her chin, "What if he really needs to go to the other side because he's suffering here?"

He couldn't ignore that. And surprisingly, Allura didn't say a thing about it.

"Come on, Red."

He received another pat in his back, and somehow he thanked it wasn't equally strong as the one Lance gave him some days ago.

He breathed one more time, profoundly, filling his lungs and exhaling it when it hurt, and walked up the stairs, the wood crunching beneath his feet with irritation. And until then he noticed something.

The windows were closed before?

"Keith?" Pidge insisted, and he suddenly wanted Lance's stupidly strong push to enter.

"Yeah, I'm going." He murmured, turning to the door and pushing it with the necessary force for it to open, "I'm not sure of this, Pidge."

He heard her scoff.

"That's why I'm coming with you, Red", she really comfort him, but seeing her put the camera in front of them made him nervous.

"Thank you, Greenmlin" he spitted and received another pat, this time rougher than the other ones and he used it to enter the house, paralyzing in the hall.

"Nothing seems weird", he heard her comment back him.

Oh, but clearly she couldn't feel all that pressure over all her body.

He tried to swallow, but the smell of dust and humid from the walls was too strong for him to take a correct breath. He glanced to his right, the specks of dust that adorned the entire house before nowhere to be found, only emptiness too harsh and dark. He tried to breathe, only able to let go air he didn't know he was holding and trying to get it back to his lungs.

He frightened at the sound of glass hitting wood and turn immediately to the kitchen, seeing that Pidge had walked to the bar and tipped a flower vase, empty, of course, in the furniture.

"Oops" she said pretending to care and kept pointing her camera in different directions, squinting to find something worth her attention, "Oh, Keith, have you seen this?"

He frowned, and glanced one more time to the used-to-be living room before going in the dining room and turning to the kitchen. Pidge was pointing to an old picture, a little frame of a couple; a man, Shiro Keith judged because of the firm posture and the black hair, with his hands in the shoulders of a woman seated in a chair in front of the soldier, whose face wasn't decipherable between the time-blurring stains. Nonetheless, it could be seen that her hair was styled elegantly and was a scale lighter than the sepia of her skin.

"Hm… it doesn't look good" Pidge said reaching for the frame to look at it more carefully.

"P-pidge, I don't think you should…" Keith tried, but in a second the picture fell from the nail.

The crystal cracking made him back out, almost tripping, and Pidge jumped back too, hiding her hand as if Keith didn't see her make the frame fall and pointing the camera to the broken picture.

"Oops" she repeated looking at Keith innocently; as if she really cared she broke it, "In my defense, it wasn't really firm, you know."

Keith didn't heard her go on and on about the poor resistance of the nail and the wall, to stunned because of a flashing image behind his eyelids, the image on full color of that woman in the picture, and with the most beautiful and sincere smile he has ever seen. He brought his hands to his head, feeling the shiver run through his spine too fast and unsteady, making him spasm.

"Keith?"

"We shouldn't be here" he murmured, his consciousness yelling and crying to go back his steps and never come back to that damned house.

"Oh, yeah."

He jumped, looking at Pidge, finding her inspecting the kitchen with interest, and he had the hope he could get out of there and forget everything that happened.

"There isn't so much to see here, let's go to the rooms in the back."

 _Right._

He pursued his lips, seeing her abandon him in the dining room, and he couldn't follow her immediately, glancing the broken frame tilted to the wall. He sighed silently and passed his hand through his hair, gazing briefly at the flower vase, in a weird yellow color, and biting his lower lip before reaching it. He putted back in the place where a circle of cleanness was easily spotted in the dusty surface, and shot a last glance to the picture in the ground, swallowing at putting colors to the woman and the soldier.

Keith squinted, noting something else in the picture, and he approached to look at it more carefully, stopping his hand mid-air near the crashed crystal.

In the ring finger of the woman and the soldier there was a thin metal band.

"Keith!"

He jumped from his feet and fell down to the ground, groaning and glaring at Pidge peering from the hall.

"What're you doing there, Red? Come on!"

He grumbled and almost wished it was Lance who joined into the haunted house. At least it was easier to ignore Lance's complaining and concentrate in what he needed to do, more than Pidge's enthusiasm and exciting shrieking voice.

"Move!"

Keith got up, not even bothering to take off the dust in his clothes, and glanced to the picture one last time, a little misplaced by Shiro's smile in it. He looked content, but not especially happy.

Sighing, he walked to the hall, feeling a refreshing and calming breeze hitting his nape softly.

"There's nothing in the living room" Pidge complained getting back to his side, not letting him to think about the slight air brushing his skin gently, "Everything's all old and dusty."

"The house have been abandoned for quite a time now, Pidge, it's obvious that it will be like that" he explained glancing to the end of the hallway, frowning at seeing the window in there closed, too, "Something's wrong…"

"Nothing seems wrong to me," the little one pointed out looking to the pictures framed all the long of the hallway, stopping her steps just before the painting that started all his problems, "Uh… maybe there IS something wrong…"

Keith glanced, almost scolding her at seeing her reaching for another picture, fearing she'll break it, too, but looking her worried expression made the words get caught in his throat.

"Keith… this…" Pidge stuttered looking back to the picture, shaking her head in disbelief as he approached to see, gasping at recognizing the blurred face.

It was the feeling of remembering being somewhere but not having been there in reality. It was the feeling of remembering wearing those military clothes but not really remembering when he did. It was the feeling of remembering having the hair that short but that in his life he had the hair shorter than it was.

He took the frame from her hands, staring at it so hard it was starting to hurt his eyes. The blurry stains around and above the two people posing wasn't helping.

Nonetheless, it wasn't that difficult to recognize the line of his jaw, the furrowing of his lips, the size of his eyes, so familiar and easy to relate to the reflection of himself in the crystal.

"Keith…"

He shook his head a few times, looking to Shiro in the picture, hugging this clone of himself in a friendly embrace, both in front of two airplanes.

"It doesn't make any sense" he murmured, frowning his eyebrows to the point his head started to hurt, but he tried to see any difference between that person and himself, any sign that tell him that he didn't forgot a memory of a whole life in the army, beside Shiro. But even when there were some differences, he freaked out even more, "I don't…"

A sound at the end of the hallway made him shut up, his blood going cold when one of the doors, the left one, started to open with a creak. Both stared at it, and Pidge looked back at him, finally a little worried.

"That…" she said glancing the picture and the door "was an invitation?"

He putted back the frame in the wall before seeing Pidge walking to the open door in careful steps, her camera recording everything she considered important.

"Pidge, I don't think we should…"

But, _OF COURSE_ , she didn't listen.

She opened the door slowly, the camera in front of her and turning on the auxiliary light in the side. He almost tripped trying to reach her.

"Pidge, please…" he started, but the pleading stopped midway at the darkness of the room, consuming al the sides and edges.

Keith froze in the doorway, his blood going terribly cold and his face paling with a shiver, and the eerie sensation that someone, or something, has watching them thoroughly crushing him, the suffocating air making too difficult to breathe.

"There'sn't too much here, either…" he heard Pidge comment above the buzzing and sharp sound deafening him abruptly, and saw her go into the room with a carefree attitude and eyeing the desk in the back, "Only bookshelves and boxes full of paper."

Keith looked into the dark, shooting gazes to every shadow joined in the walls and the floor, the poor light that entered from the covered window only lighting the center of the room and too slightly the furniture lined in the corners.

"P-pidge…"

"It looks like they're papers from the army," she explained as if Keith asked for it, looking through all the papers spread in the desk, her camera illuminating directly the letters, "but there'sn't no military details. More like they're notes or something."

"Pidge…" He pleaded again, the cold sweat running from his nape, the tremor and instinct under his skin, the breathe caressing his ear, "Pidge!"

"Didn't you say this was the room you saw the ghost in?" she asked ignoring his scream, "Maybe there's some information that could help us helping him."

"It wasn't this room, Pidge!" he exclaimed daring to step in the room to the darkness. If he had to take her out against her will, he will. "We have to go! Now!"

"Is there something wrong here?" she doubted without looking, still going through the papers before glancing him, "Or are you scared of the dark?"

"I'm not…!"

He gasped, staring dumbly to the pair of yellow glowing eyes behind Pidge, shimmering eerily at him, and a crunch made him jump, seeing the bookshelf behind her starting to tip.

"Pidge!"

She turned to the sound, gasping and jumping to Keith in a second, her camera hanging from her wrist carelessly. Keith caught her and both fell to the floor, the rumbling from the bookshelf hitting the desk and the books falling from its places making them shiver.

"What was that?!" Pidge exclaimed looking at the cloud of dust before her.

And Keith couldn't answer when he heard the window starting to tremble violently.

"Watch out!" he yelled turning above the girl, the crystal shattering at an invisible force, and crashing loudly, the pieces of glass hitting his clothes.

"What the hell?!"

He didn't wait for more to happen. He made Pidge get up by pulling her arm and made her run in front of him to the door, hearing the window of the hall starting to tremble the second they were on the hallway.

"Keith!"

He pushed her away to avoid getting her hurt, and he received the most of the hit of the breaking glass. What he didn't see was the little drawer beneath the window frame falling to him with an incredible force that surely wasn't only the air and gravity.

"Run!" he screamed pushing her as they were running, feeling some of the stuff that fell from the drawer hit him in his legs and something cutting his shin, "Pidge!"

Vaguely, he heard their friends shouting in confusion, but he couldn't make the words from all the noise, something suddenly cutting through his jacket and stabbing his shoulder painfully. He covered his cut with his hand, worrying to get out of that house first, and he stumbled upon Pidge when she stopped in the entrance, camera ready to record him running in the hallway.

Both fell rolling into the other from the stairs and stayed in the ground groaning.

"Keith!" he heard Allura yell from the side walk, arriving to his side too fast, "Pidge!"

"What was that?!" Hunk exclaimed from the safeness of the street, but Lance had come just behind Allura.

"What was all that noise?!" he asked frightened, and Keith could see by his face that for the first time he believed what Keith had told them.

"A bookshelf fell over me!" Pidge shouted, too excited to be say that and be taken seriously.

"A bookshelf?!" Lance repeated disbelieving, and Pidge showed her camera.

"I have it all recorded", she announced proudly, and Keith grumbled in the floor, hating her so much.

"Keith? Are you alright?"

He opened his eyes, squinting at the sunlight hitting him in the face, and brought his hand to his head, trying to cover it.

"I…"

"You're hurt!"

He startled at Allura's hands roaming his leg, lifting it too desperately and making him hit the back of his head with the ground.

"H-hey! I'm okay!" he tried seating to take Allura's hands for her to stop touching, "It's just a scratch, it's nothing."

Her blue eyes stayed in the little cut beneath the torn on his clothes, almost in disbelief, and they tremble their way to his face, stopping at his shoulder.

"Your shoulder!" she shouted jumping to him, her hands grabbing his arm and jaw to look, "You're bleeding!"

"A-allura…" he pleaded, and almost felt sorry for him to be pleading too much, "It's not…"

"Hunk! Keith's bleeding!" she called their friend still hesitating in entering the yard or not, "HUNK!"

"Oh, god…"

Hunk crossed the yard while Keith started to feel the pain, the one in his leg not so strong, but the one in his shoulder too hot and dripping, dizzying him.

"A-allura…" he mumbled bringing his other hand to the wound and feeling the blood sprouting slowly and in a smaller proportion as he thought, "What…?"

He felt Hunk take his fore arms and try to get him away from Allura, who had to be hugged by Pidge and Lance for her to not collapse, and Keith stopped his friend before he could take a look to the wound, wincing and groaning at getting something out from sinking more into his skin.

"What's…?" he heard Hunk doubt whilst he examined the metal piece, "Is that…?"

"A medal?" Keith stuttered staring at the golden wings, flashing under the blood, and he wiped with his thumb, a star of five points linking the wings.

Hunk stood up a little, and Keith heard him swallow hard, but he waited for Keith to make a wave for him to look at the wound.

"Don't move," he ordered half requested, the tremor of his voice still there, "It doesn't seem too deep."

He nodded without really listening, too concentrated in the medal on his fingers. It almost didn't fit in the palm of his hand, the ends of the wings sticking out, and only the right wing was the one covered in blood, the rest of it only splattered a little. He supposed it was because the right wing was the one that stabbed him.

"It only needs cleaning," Hunk, the designed nurse of the group because he was the only one with the knowledge of first aid and didn't lost consciousness at the sight of blood; announced," I have a kit in my backpack, but I prefer to treat it in other place."

Keith nodded again, still staring at the medal, and everyone startled when the front door of the house closed suddenly.

"OH, MY GOD!"

"Calm down, Hunk!"

"Maybe it was the air!"

"There wasn't any air! It was a ghost!"

"K-KEITH!"

He sighed, getting up from the ground and getting help from Pidge, surprisingly the little one could lift him easily.

"Let's go" she said while putting his arm around her shoulders.

"I can walk on my own", he tried poorly, the stance of his knees too shaky for him to be speaking the truth.

"Whatever, Red" Pidge said rolling her eyes to the side, "I prefer for us to get out of here before something else happens."

And Keith wished to have that careful Pidge by his side that afternoon.

"What do you have here?" Lance curiously asked at his hand, the medal shining in the sunlight, "Did you steal that?"

"It hurt him, Lance!" Allura scolded coldly.

Keith sighed, terribly exhausted, and by passing his finger over and over again the medal, he felt something written in the back, turning it between his fingers to look.

And right there, in italic, elegant calligraphy, it could be read _Takashi Shirogane_.


	6. Chapter 6: The Pilot

Nothing worse could happen to Keith right now.

Of course that after almost dying in a haunted house and losing consciousness thanks to the pain in his shoulder, things could always get worse and make him end up sick because of the blood loss he had was the least that could happen.

He had somehow managed to avoid her mother to check him from head to toe after he had blacked out for a second during breakfast. And he had somehow made her desist to bring him to the hospital when she felt his face with the back of her hand and noticed that he had fever, maybe since the night before. He should've thought that his clouded mind and heaviness in his eyes haven't been because of the near-death experience they had but because his defenses went down and it was way harder pretending to be sane and complete when his shoulder ached as hell and the need to limp was more each step he took.

But, of course, putting aside that he was ordered to rest during the morning on school day, feeling that his head throbbed every time he moved and resisting the nausea that was caused by the dizziness and the weird food his mother made him eat, he had to suffer this too.

"It was complete madness! You have no idea how dumb it was! What if Pidge have gotten hurt?! What if you have been more injured?! Or what if you've not come back at all?!"

He breathed in and out one more time, willing the discomfort in his stomach and head to turn to her. The yelling had been coming nonstop since half an hour ago and he felt them more as buzzing in his ears than anything else. But he couldn't ignore Allura's red face, her blue eyes open in consternation and anger, her mouth opening and closing over and over again.

"Allura," he tried for seventh time since she had arrived 40 minutes ago, and he somehow regrets having pushed her to yell at him after insisting her to talk to him, because the first 10 minutes in his room had been torture in complete silence, "Allura…"

"And don't come to me with 'Allura…'!" she imitated his voice with a rougher and deeper tone, and it could've been funny if he wasn't feeling so guilty, "You should've listen to me from the very beginning!"

"It was just a couple of scratches," he debated poorly, glancing at his bandaged shoulder, with so much car and discretion thanks to Hunk that it was possible hiding it below the shirts he normally used.

"A couple of scratches?" he repeated as if that was insane, her eyebrows going up to her hairline, "You got sick because of those couple of scratches!"

He swallowed, not knowing how to argue against that. Maybe that's why his ears were buzzing and not because of Allura's yelling.

"It could happen to anyone…" he discussed without energy, letting himself get nauseous twisting his guts and having to lie down again.

He stared at the ceiling, waiting another round of scolding from Allura. But after a few seconds of silence, he seated up quickly, finding her staring a point in the wall behind him. Keith couldn't see it, but he was sure she was looking the constellations' little poster above the headboard. She was hugging herself, her hands going up and down in her arms as if she was cold, and he could see her eyebrows scrunched up more in worry than in anger.

"Allura…"

"The last time," she interrupted looking back at him and paralyzing him at the sharp turquoise of her eyes, "the last time you interfered with a ghost, that you helped a ghost, you broke your wrist."

Keith gasped, looking down to his hands on the blanket and remembering in flashes of the past how he tried to explain Allura how he knew so much about her, even things that were private and only her family knew about her. He remembers how she demanded to leave her alone, to get away from her; how she lost her balance when she tried to get rid of his hold in her hand and tripped towards the stairs; how Keith had the instinct to jump to her, to protect her, more as if someone had possessed his body and had thrown themselves for her; how he had shattered his wrist when they ended up in the ground of the first floor and the shouts and cries from the people around, from Allura, still reviving themselves perfectly through the buzz in his ears.

Fortunately Allura haven't been hurt. And somehow their friendship forged up over the rumors that had been him who pushed her down the stairs because she had rejected him and that she had defended herself pulling him down with her. After all, a lot of people had noticed them arguing in the hallway before the incident.

"That was your fault," he mumbled under his breath, looking away to the wall next to his bed and receiving a harsh hit in his healthy leg, "Hey!"

"I know it was my fault, Keith!"

He stared at her eyes, full of tears.

"Allura…"

"I know I shouldn't have exploded," she continued looking down and wiping her tears with the inside of her wrist, "I know I should've listened to you instead of getting defensive. But I had suffered so much during those last months, and that you suddenly approached with words that only my father said, and gestures that only him did to comfort me…"

He sighed softly and got out of the covers of his bed to seat in the edge of it, taking Allura's hand and pulling her gently to him.

"Hey…" he tried, seeing her shake her head.

"I didn't want my wounds to open up again," she murmured, sniffing and wiping her tears off carelessly with her free hand, "They were scarring, and what I wanted was not to get hurt again."

Keith stayed silent, observing her attentively, and sighed, making her sit down beside him and he held her hand between his.

"You weren't scarring, Allura," he explained slowly, seeing her blink at their entwined hands, "You were blaming yourself for what had happened. You were trying to forget about absolutely everything to run away from your feelings."

She pulled her shoulders up to her ears, gasping silently.

"I wasn't…" she started frowning and shaking her head again, "Why do you think…?"

"Your father told me," he explained without deepening more, "And I could see it when you went quiet during lunch and every time you were alone in class."

"Keith…"

"I lost my father when I was 12," he cut her off, feeling her startle and knowing she was looking at him with surprise, but he couldn't make himself to glance her even, afraid of breaking down because that conversation wasn't to comfort him, "And you don't know how much time I felt guilty of not stopping him from going to work that day, or at least saying goodbye properly, or remind him that I loved him."

She took air tremblingly and the hand that was in her lap went to take his hands and squeeze them gently.

"But this kind of things happen," he scoffed, his smile forced and stretched, "And sadly we don't know how to handle it because they never teach us how. Not until it happens and it's by yourself that have to learn to bear."

They were in silence for a few seconds. Allura moved her fingers nervously between Keith's before reaching to his face and holding his cheek, making him lift his gaze to hers with a little touch in the edge of his jaw.

"You have never told me this," she murmured, her expression pained and pursued lips, "why?"

Keith showed her half a smile, still trying not to break in front of her.

"I didn't think it was necessary," he said shrugging, Allura's hand falling from his face, "Sympathy was the least you needed, because it's similar to pity."

Allura lowered her sight, huffing weakly.

"I would've not been so hard with you," she commented, biting her lips after.

"That wouldn't have helped, either," he joked denying it with a move of his head and shifting in the bed to face her completely, "And it was alright, because helping you find peace in your loss was how I found peace in mine."

Her mouth curved up in a smile, looking back to her hand between his.

"I'm glad I could help," Allura whispered, "Although it cost you a few months without being able to write."

He scoffed, shaking his head again, and gazed down to their hands, frowning.

"Listen," she asked, her thumb tracing lines in his knuckles, "I'm not saying you shouldn't help Shiro. Surely, he needs it and you're the only one that can do it. But after what you went through to help my father…"

He sighed heavily, looking at the floor.

"Your father was problematic," he commented tilting his head to a side, feeling her pause, "but not because he wanted to. Most of the times what we want isn't what we need, and there were so many things that he wanted me to do to make you happy. It wasn't what he needed to go peacefully, though."

Allura nodded, squeezing his hands again.

"I've never thanked you properly," she said leaning towards him and planting her forehead in his shoulder. Keith flinched at the contact, "Thank you for helping us. I really don't know what would have happened if I continued with so much sorrow in my life."

Keith blinked, breathing deeply and reaching up to her to caress her hair in stiff, weird moves. Even though they've been friends for a few years, the awkwardness in him was still there when he wanted to be affectionate.

And before they could stay in a comfortable silence that Keith's buzzing ears would be grateful for, someone cleared their throat in the hallway and both turned to the open door, finding Pidge casually leaning in the threshold.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, happy couple," she said glancing down to their entwined hands, and Keith rolled back his eyes, "but if you wanted privacy with the door open, you should've locked the front door."

Allura straightened her back, frowning.

"I left it open for you to come in," she explained getting her hands away from Keith's, "And we were talking."

"Ah, I know that," Pidge answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. Keith resisted the urge to growl, "Guess who I found spying on you two from the stairs."

Pidge got away from the wall and pulled something from her side, Lance falling in front of her and Hunk peeping out nervously from the hallway. This time, Keith did growl.

"I wasn't spying!" Lance exclaimed, trying to get up but Pidge's hand in the neck of his jacket keeping him in the ground, "Please, Pidge! As if Keith would know how to make a move!"

Allura sighed, exhausted, and Keith closed his eyes to control his anger.

"I don't know, man," Hunk said scratching his neck, "you looked really suspicious thrown in the last steps."

"Hunk!" he shouted turning to him the best he could with Pidge's grip still in his jacket, "Help me here, would you?!

"I won't argue the obvious!"

"But I wasn't spying!" Lance insisted again, his expression lighting up with a new argument, "I tripped!"

"Don't yell!" Pidge interrupted before Hunk could answer.

"You're yelling, too!"

"I ain't yelling!"

"You just yelled me that!"

Keith groaned, still hearing them argue, and the headache came back in stings, to what he let himself fall to the bed and covered his eyes with his arm.

"Guys!"

They went silent when Allura's voice cut them off, Keith glancing at her before covering his face again.

"Could you not yell?" she asked them and crossed her arms over her chest, "Keith has fever, and I'm pretty sure that those yells are causing him a headache."

Oh, the irony.

Allura turned to him, glaring, and he blinked a couple of times before sitting up and notice that the rest of his friends were staring at him.

"Oh, I said it out loud."

Allura huffed.

"Well, turning to the subject of importance," Pidge said letting Lance go and crossing the room to the desk, taking off her backpack and pulling out her laptop, "At what time does your mother gets out from work?"

Keith looked up to her, shifting in the bed.

"At 5," he said shrugging, "but not will be back until after 6. She buys pizza on Fridays."

"Perfect," she announced proudly, typing quickly before turning and leaning on the desk, "We can talk freely."

"And there'll be pizza!" Hunk exclaimed, throwing a punch to the air while walking toward Keith, "How are you feeling your wounds?"

"Terrible," he answered grimacing when trying to get out of his shirt with one hand, "Help me?"

Hunk smiled softly, taking off his shirt and seating down beside him, starting to pull off the bandages to put on new ones.

"I have information about your friend, the ghost," Pidge commented taking a seat in the chair and turning to the computer, "You know, the one that almost kills us."

Keith shot a glance at Allura, finding her staring at Lance while he was still in the ground and tracing marked lines in the wood.

"Shiro," he corrected reluctantly, flinching when the bandage peeled off from the naked wound and caused him a sharp pain, "What did you find about him?"

Pidge stayed quietly typing for a second before turning with the computer in her lap, the screen turned to them.

It was a newspaper article, Shiro's photo in the upper right corner, once again in his green uniform and now with a half-smile curving up his mouth. The header said 'Youngest pilot in achieving lieutenant rank', in big, bold letters.

"Pilot," he sighed, the freshness of clean bandages in his shoulder relieving him more than he thought they would, "The medal-"

"It's a medal for his accomplishments in the army," Pidge explained turning back the computer in her lap and typing for a moment, the light of the screen lightning up her glasses, "Apparently, he too graduated with honors from the academy and was leader of his squad for a few years."

Keith frowned, blinking at the blanket.

"Truth is that there's not much in his life that's out of the common," she continued, still clicking and typing, "He became a veteran from the army, got engaged with a lady of uptown and lived 'calmly' for the rest of his life in the 39th house."

"Wait," Lance said suddenly, talking for the first time in minutes, "why do you quote 'calmly'?"

Keith stared at him doing the quotation marks that Pidge did to emphasize the word.

"He divorced from her wife two years after de wedding, but they kept living together in that house until he died. She went to an asylum a few months after his death, seemingly with symptoms of schizophrenia."

Hunk and Allura exchanged looks, Keith blinking to try and join the dots, but it wasn't enough information.

"You said that there wasn't much out of common," he pointed out looking up to her and seeing her nod, "What's that's out of common?"

Pidge exhaled loudly, turning the laptop again, and all of them squinted and leaned to try and see from they were.

"He disappeared for two years," Pidge said looking up to the ceiling, reciting the same that they were reading in a police report, "in the middle of a mission. They thought he was dead because his plane crashed, but one of his partners never believed it and kept looking for him during that time."

She scrolled down the report, stopping in a few photographs.

"When he found him, our Shiro guy had white hair, a scar over his nose and no right arm," Pidge explained the photos, leaning her chin over the screen, "But that's not what's shocking."

"I-it's not?" Hunk asked, his frown so deep in worry at Shiro's pale face in one of the photos.

"Nope," Pidge chirped, scrolling down even more and making them all gasp at the last photography.

All of them turned to Keith, but he didn't have the strength to look at them, instead staring intently at the photo, Shiro smiling weakly at another man in uniform, this time with a longer hair that had to be braided and put around his neck. Now he did looked like him, just more mature and older than him.

"Yeah, that's what I said, too," Pidge joked around, "Told ya."

Allura sat down, still staring at him, and Hunk trembled while tying up his bandages. Lance was quiet, but his mouth was open in a silent scream that Keith was sure was meant to be some swear in Spanish.

Pidge grinned widely, and Keith felt his stomach turn upside down.

"His name was Akira Kazuhiko."


	7. Chapter 7: The Lead

So I forgot to update this chapter here, and I apologize for that.

I won't be able to keep going any time soon because I have to keep working on my thesis, so the hiatus is still up.

Still, I hope you like this chapter and keep reading me in the future.

* * *

"Holy shit."

"Oh, god."

"Hoooooooly shiiiiit!"

"Unbelievable…"

"HOOOOOLY SHIIIIIIT!"

Keith sighed, exhausted, Lance's screams getting louder and sharper.

"THERE'RE TWO OF THEM!"

"Oh, please, shut up," Pidge groaned, but he kept screaming nonsense, some Spanish words getting lost in his rambling.

"Lance, calm down…" Allura tried, and he actually stopped at that, turning to them in the bed with his eyes open in shock and his skin paling even more.

"Calm down?!" he repeated in disbelief, fisting his hair and pulling, "I can't calm down! There are two of that!"

Keith glared at his finger pointing him, his rage increasing infinitely at the accusation and word selection.

"As if it would be better with two of you," he grumbled, Lance gasping dramatically.

"Well, excuse you!" he yelled back, everybody wincing at his high-pitched tone, "I _am_ a twin, asshole!"

"Totally made friends with the wrong twin," Hunk muttered below his breath, his hands already moving to finish treating Keith's wound, although his hands were still trembling.

The comment made Lance gasp even more exaggeratedly, his hand now going to the center of his chest as if the comment had hurt his heart.

"How dare you," he hissed, his nose scrunched in disgust, "We've been friend since kindergarten!"

"Could you, for god's sake, shut the fuck up?!"

They turned to Pidge, glaring intensely at Lance through her glasses.

"What?" Lance asked shrugging, dismissing his own drama, and she sighed exasperated.

"Actually," she started as-a-matter-of-fact-ly, "he died a few years ago."

"What?" Allura asked this time, her voice cracking in the edges, "But…"

"I mean," Pidge interrupted softly, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes, obviously trying to put off the headache that so much screaming caused. Or, well, that was Keith, "he was a soldier in World War II, so it's likely that he's dead."

Keith frowned, insecure and Hunk leaned a bit, his voice tender and careful.

"You're not sure?" he asked, briefly looking over Keith's leg to start pulling off the bandages.

And Pidge sighed heavily.

"I've been trying to find more information about him," she explained looking down at her laptop and typing a bit, "but it looks like, after he retired, he kind of disappeared from the face of earth. Besides, since my mom put up that stupid restriction in our internet back at home because of my 'inappropriate' investigations, I have only been able to find the simple information to find. And, no offense, Keith, but your connection sucks.

"None taken," he sighed, letting his shoulders fall a bit when he felt the cool air hit his wounded leg.

"So, what I need in this right moment urgently is a connection strong enough for me to make a proper investigation," she paused, lifting her eyebrows, "and a caramel coffee."

Keith rolled his eyes.

"You know we're trying to know more about Shiro and not about his friend, right?" he pointed out, "It's his ghost who is trapped in that house."

He received a snort.

"Excuse me," Pidge said looking at him and smiling widely, "you think I'm gonna leave the opportunity to know more about your doppelgänger? Maybe it has something to do with a conspiracy from the government that has to do something with cloning!"

"Or reincarnation," Hunk said with a sincere smile at Keith, withering when he deadly stared at him, "I mean, isn't it interesting that we found a person in the past that's identical to you?"

He rolled his eyes again, and the dizziness came back with the sole action.

"But don't worry," Pidge stated with a move of her hand, "I'll find more about your friend, the ghost, too.

"Friend?" Allura repeated with a frown, "He tried to hurt you, Pidge."

"You pushed Keith down the stairs," she answered shrugging, "And look how good that turned out."

Keith exchanged glances with Allura.

"Pidge," Hunk warned, and she sighed, slumping her shoulders.

"Okay. Sorry," she apologized without actually meaning it, "Now, coming back to the important stuff, during those two years in which Shiro was missing, the army started to lose more battles. But most of the reports don't explain why the soldiers' performance decayed, since, as Matt told me, the training and the strategies have always been getting better constantly."

She typed for a bit, letting the information sink in as if there was something that even them could understand, and Keith glanced at his friends, noting how their faces were as confused as how he felt.

"Uh…" Lance broke the silence, his eyes narrowed, "And that's important cause…"

"Because, obviously," Allura started, crossing her arms and clearly annoyed, "Pidge has been breaking the law by being in contact with his brother outside the restricted letters that get sent every three months."

Pidge sighed heavily, rolling back her eyes and glaring at her. But before she could say something offensive, Hunk spoke, his eyes attentive at what his hands were doing to Keith's wound.

"Are you saying Shiro was the only reason we were winning?" he asked shrugging a shoulder and tilting his head, "That's pretty sad for our army."

Pidge opened her mouth and closed it immediately, blinking at Hunk a couple of times and looking like a startled owl. Then, she suddenly laughed.

"Wow, I sometimes forget why you're my favorite," she murmured, looking proud at her own decision of having favorites in their group of friends, "but I'm afraid it's not the observation I wanted from you guys."

Hunk huffed, rolling his eyes playfully, and Keith felt scandalized. Were they flirting? In front of them?

"Ex-cuse-me" Lance clapped obnoxiously to get their attention, "Could you stop being gross for a bit and explain why it's important that thing about the battles?"

"As if you aren't disgusting every time you open your mouth to talk about Allura," Pidge reproached, making him mouth like a fish before closing his mouth in a pout.

"Don't be so rude to him," Allura asked for softly, her eyes lost in the wood for a second and then looking at Pidge. Lance shrugged, trying to keep his gaze down and away from her, "What is it that we're not looking?"

Pidge stayed silent, just typing, and Allura narrowed her eyes at her, obviously catching up at her attempt to ignore her for as long as possible.

"Pidge," Keith insisted this time, grimacing when Hunk tied up his bandages, "Pidge."

"I know, I know. It's just…" she mumbled, and Keith puffed, the sound of typing causing him a tick, "I'm looking for something."

She continued typing, and Allura looked at the ceiling, letting her shoulders fall with a heavy sigh. Keith understood her exhaustion, although they had it for different reasons; she was tired of Pidges demeanor, so overwhelming sometimes that even him grew tired of it. But, in his case, even though he felt that his sickness and fever had lowered down, the large amount and lack of information had dizzied him quite a lot.

"Here."

Everyone turned her attention at Pidge after some minutes in complete silence, and Keith frowned when Pidge didn't turn the laptop to them, just lifting her brows in surprise.

"Pidge?" Hunk doubted, his voice concerned, and she shook her head a little, snorting.

"Looks like mom did a good job restricting the internet back at home."

She suddenly got up from her seat with laptop in hand, getting on the bed as if it was a regular step on the stairs and crossing it swiftly. Keith almost didn't have the time to slide to the side before Pidge fell between him and Hunk, shifting in the pillow and getting comfortable while the screen of her laptop showed a few results with an internet searcher he had never seen before.

He squinted, not being able to read anything before Pidge clicked a video, the words disappearing and a new page opening. When he saw it didn't load, he looked up to Allura, finding her exchanging glances with Lance, and Pidge crossed her arms, glaring.

"Your damned internet is making me crazy," she snapped through her teeth and then gazing Lance and Allura, "And what are you waiting for? A formal invitation?"

Lance huffed and Allura's lips tightened. They hesitated for a second, but eventually Lance got up to his feet and walked to Hunk, almost falling into his lap while their ever-generous friend hugged him to keep him in the bed. Allura, though, shifted uncomfortably, her eyes pointedly searching for space to seat and avoiding all of their looks. Keith sighed and slided a bit until his side was against the wall, patting the little empty space he had done between him and Pidge.

Allura took a deep breath, apparently to forget her distress and shyness, and she climbed up the bed without a word, carefully seating down beside him and a bit over his leg.

"Sorry," she murmured quietly, and Keith didn't even try to tell her it was nothing, Lance's glare burning the side of his face.

"So," Pidge started, a little tick appearing under her glasses when she saw the video still wasn't loading, "summing up, when I investigated in my house, the number of results about this was minimum. This is one of the videos I found. But, using the stupidly slow internet here, I found some other things I already saved up in my computer."

"Why did you save them?" Lance asked, frowning at the little circle turning from black to red.

"To avoid losing information," Pidge said with a shrug, "We don't know what we're getting into, and if it has something to do with the Army, I'm pretty sure some of the information won't be here tomorrow."

Keith blinked, remembering briefly the number of results in the search before the change of pages, and nodded, Hunk humming.

Then the video loaded and Pidge sighed heavily, clicking it. The image was blurry and careless, moving from side to side and up and down because the one filming seemed to be running. It was a surveillance video in the ruins of a city, in the middle of the night, only the blues of the moon and the stars illuminating from the clear sky. Judging by the camouflage coming into the scene sometimes, the one filming it was a soldier, and even when Pidge fervently pressed the buttons to raise the volume, it was mute.

"Fucking thing," Pidge grumbled, "It had audio yesterday."

Keith frowned, more put off by the statement than the sudden explosions that started to bright up the place in yellows and reds, and he felt Allura startle when another explosion happened near the camera, stumbling down the soldier to the ground. When the camera looked up from the sand, fire could be seen consuming the debris and the rest of the buildings, a still shadow against the flames being unrecognizable before it charged against the soldier, yellow eyes shining against the screen before the video got cut.

Allura covered her mouth, a gasp sounding in the room, and Keith was quick to take her shoulder, getting closer for her to lean up on his body and away from the screen. But there was nothing more to see, the gray static going to black.

"What...?"

"I'll return it for you to watch more closely," Pidge interrupted quickly, doing what she said to just before the soldier was attacked, and then resumed it in a slower speed.

And Keith wanted to deny recognizing the figure against the fire, the little puff of white hair reflecting orange light, the eyes covered by yellow glow but were humanly gray. Keith wanted that that was just his imagination, his wish to know more about Shiro. But that the video showed it more detailed a second time just broke his heart much more.

"I-is that...?"

"Oh, God..."

"His hair, guys..."

He felt his breath come shallow, the voices of his friends starting to fade out and sound like under the water. His eyes couldn't move from the screen, the video restarting again and pausing just in Shiro's face, with that eerie appearance. It was the same he had seen in the in the painting that first time, but with the fresh wound over his nose.

"Keith?"

A sharp pain in his temple made him groan, his hand going up to his head and his eyes closing tightly. He heard his friends start to panic, he himself feeling that the oxygen wasn't entering his system, and when the colors started flooding his eyelids, he fainted.

"Keith!"

 _"Shiro?"_


End file.
